Apocalypse: King of Zombies

Over the next few days, Ethan and his people made a full sweep through several nearby countries.

Some still had compounds hanging on.

Some had been completely erased by the apocalypse.

And some didn’t have compounds at all… but still had humans alive.

Those survivors were scattered in small pockets, hiding wherever they could, dodging zombies and scraping together a life day by day.

Seeing all that side by side, it only made one thing clearer:

The Atlas Federation was doing the best out of everyone.

In these last few days, aside from the Void Realm creatures they’d run into in the Seorin Republic, they didn’t encounter any more. The later countries had none.

They did find a few more Awakened, though. Ethan took their abilities and transferred them onto members of the Fallen Star Guard.

It wasn’t that Ethan was unusually ruthless.

People were selfish. And under the apocalypse, raising your own strength came first—before morals, before appearances, before anyone else’s opinion.

On the fourth day, Ethan’s group reached another major power bordering the Atlas Federation: the Bharat Republic.

Its land area couldn’t compare to the Atlas Federation, but somehow—quietly, over time—its population had already surpassed it.

And the moment Ethan’s group crossed into Bharat airspace, the first thing they saw was a sea of zombies.

Endless.

You could practically feel the density from the sky.

Less than a third of the Atlas Federation’s territory, yet more people than the Atlas Federation itself—Bharat’s population concentration was brutal.

And Bharat’s overall conditions were worse across the board.

Under those circumstances, rescue and stabilization had been far harder than anything the Atlas Federation faced.

But Bharat had another problem layered on top: its wealth gap was extreme.

The slums were packed so tight you could barely breathe.

The rich districts weren’t.

When the apocalypse hit, the wealthy areas were rescued quickly and compounds went up fast.

The civilian districts… after a few failed rescue attempts, they were abandoned.

That choice came with a price.

Bharat’s zombie numbers were especially horrifying because, in the poor districts, almost everyone who wasn’t Enhanced—and everyone who couldn’t carve a path out with their own hands—ended up as part of the horde.

Bharat’s government focused on saving the rich and ignored the ugly truth: in an apocalypse, people were the most fundamental resource.

In the face of that massive zombie population, their compounds fell one after another, swallowed whole.

In the end, not a single large compound survived in the entire Bharat Republic.

Humanity there hadn’t gone extinct, though.

Some strong survivors formed small groups and managed to keep going.

They built tiny shelters in remote places, went out every day to hunt zombies and scavenge supplies, then tried to sleep without getting eaten.

Every few days, they had to relocate. They basically lived without an address.

Shelters got surrounded all the time.

Most of them didn’t make it out.

That only eased a little after the zombies’ intelligence was wiped out.

Ethan’s team flew on, and when they realized they couldn’t spot a single proper compound anywhere, they were genuinely stunned.

With a population base that huge, they’d assumed Bharat would have, what—tens of millions still alive?

The reality smacked them in the face.

They started spotting the small shelters soon after.

Calling them ”shelters” was generous. Most were just rough fences thrown up in a circle with tents inside—barely enough to count as living.

The sight left the squad quiet.

Especially the Fallen Star Guard. A lot of them looked like they’d just realized something they didn’t want to think about: if they hadn’t ended up under Fallen Star City’s umbrella, their lives might’ve looked exactly like this.

Or worse.

They might’ve been food.

Down below, the Bharati survivors saw the Flamebirds sweeping in overhead and instantly panicked.

The fighters rushed to the front with weapons out.

Behind them, everyone else started tearing down tents at top speed—hands shaking, ready to run the second someone shouted the word.

Ethan swept his gaze over the shelter. No Awakened.

So he didn’t bother stopping. He led the team straight past and kept flying.

After that, they spotted several more shelters in a row. Same story every time.

The Bharati survivors were nothing like what people used to say about them before the apocalypse—no swagger, no attitude. They were jumpy, skittish, like startled birds. The second they saw Flamebirds overhead, they tensed up, ready to scatter.

It was obvious they’d been chewed up by the end of the world and spit back out.

Ethan didn’t soften.

If he saw an Awakened, he had them crippled and taken on the spot.

In his eyes, he was already being merciful by not killing them. Before the apocalypse, these Bharati weren’t exactly known for behaving themselves.

Eventually, after covering almost half of Bharat’s territory, they finally saw Void Realm creatures again.

This time they weren’t humanoid.

They were mutant beasts.

A swarm of massive, scorpion-like monsters.

Each one was about the size of a wild boar. Thick armor plates. Two heavy front pincers that looked strong enough to crush steel. Their tails arched high, and the stingers gleamed with a cold, lethal shine that made your skin crawl.

You could tell at a glance they weren’t from Earth—and not just because of the size.

It was their strength.

Every one of them was Tier 20 or higher, and the strongest had already reached peak Tier 23.

On Earth, most creatures were still capped at Tier 18. Even exceptionally gifted mutant beasts topped out around Tier 19. Anything above Tier 20 was basically a dead giveaway: not native.

Down below, the scorpions were slaughtering zombies like they were trash mobs—one snap of a pincer, one kill. Meanwhile, zombie attacks thudded uselessly off their thick shells, unable to leave a mark.

Ethan lifted a hand.

Behind him, twenty thousand Fallen Star Guard surged forward in a wave, dropping down and sweeping the entire area clean—zombies and scorpions alike, caught in the same net.

After that, it was like they’d found a nest.

In that region, they ran into batch after batch of different Void Realm creatures.

Some were hunting zombies.

Some were straight-up enjoying them like a meal.

Zombie meat obviously wasn’t as good as human—no contest—but high-tier zombies didn’t have as much of that rotting, corrosive feel. To Void Realm mutant beasts, it was still edible. Even tasty.

Ethan had numbers. So every time they found a group, he didn’t negotiate—he wiped them out.

By the end of the day, they’d harvested over ten thousand high-tier crystal cores. Dozens of them were Tier 23.

At this point, the entire Fallen Star Squad was Tier 23, and Ethan himself had reached peak Tier 23.

Too bad none of the Void Realm creatures they killed were Stage A. If one of those had shown up, Ethan could’ve broken through on the spot.

Still—this was a huge gain. The trip hadn’t been a waste.

They spent two days in Bharat Republic. In that time, they killed tens of thousands of Void Realm creatures and transferred the abilities from dozens of captured Awakened onto Fallen Star Guard members.

Then they finally left.

After that, Ethan led the team farther and farther out, pushing into more distant countries.

As they swept through nation after nation, the name that followed them started spreading across the world:

Bandits.

In a little over half a month, aside from a few countries that had decent relations with the Atlas Federation, pretty much everyone else got ”visited” by them at least once.

In the Fallen Star Guard alone, the number of Awakened had climbed past two hundred.

Now Ethan was weighing his next move.

Cross the Pacific and head into the Southern Hemisphere…

Or go north first—to the biggest country on Earth by landmass: the Rus Federation.

The Pacific bothered him.

Going to the Yamato Empire was one thing. That stretch was short. Crossing the Pacific was a completely different beast.

If you asked where the ocean was most terrifying, the Pacific had a strong argument for number one.

Even Ethan didn’t feel totally confident about making that crossing.

In the end, he decided to go to Rus first.

He had a good feeling about that country. He could skip robbing their Awakened—still worth taking a look.

And as the largest nation on Earth, the odds of Void Realm creatures existing there were high.

If he got lucky, he might be able to use the crystal cores from hunting Void Realm monsters to push himself into Stage A in one jump.

At that point, his power would spike again—and when the next catastrophe hit, he’d have that much more room to survive.

Ethan lifted his chin. ”Let’s go. Rus Federation.”

”Alright,” the others answered.

And the Flamebirds turned north.